McLaren Lose Entire Day of Practice After Fernando Alonso Shunt

McLaren have not had a very good day with regard to the Indianapolis 500 preparations. The team worked hard to get Fernando Alonso on the track after his practice crash on Thursday. Sadly for the British outfit, it was all for nought and they lost valuable track time

After the 2-time Formula One World champion stuffed it in the wall, the McLaren team had been fixing the spare care. It is believed that the team worked until 2 a.m. on the car, as well as the entirety of Day 3 putting together a new car for Fernando Alonso.

“It’s definitely slow going,” confessed McLaren CEO Zak Brown. “We had to borrow pieces from the one car and move them to the other car, bring in bits from an outside location, change the engine. It’s been a lot of work. We’re just trying to get it done right, put some extra TLC in it and make sure it is ready to go.”

Fernando Alonso was simply a passenger in this crash

However, their problems did not end there, as electrical problems caused mayhem. Also, it was not helped that an entire day was necessary to rebuild the car. Then the weather decided to play spoilsport and brought the session to an early end.

A few hours earlier, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Felix Rosenqvist crashed out as well at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. However the team took far lesser time getting Rosenqvist back out on track. This was achieved because the team’s spare car was ready just in case and its sports car personnel were also on standby.

According to Brown, trying to tackle the Indianapolis 500 as an independent team has been Herculean. Inspite of a McLaren and Carlin technical alliance, the small crew of mechanics and engineers are in the deep end.

“I’ve seen lots of drama here before, and I don’t want any drama,” Brown said. “The speed in the car (Wednesday) seemed to be OK, Fernando will get right back up to speed, he’s not fazed, so I think we are just trying to put together a car that is ready to go and ready to perform.”